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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28256796">each thing in its place is best</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/jk_rockin/pseuds/jk_rockin'>jk_rockin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Sex, Barebacking, M/M, Orgasm Control, Shame Edward Little Power Hour, Verbal Humiliation, quite mild but it's in there</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:41:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,780</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28256796</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/jk_rockin/pseuds/jk_rockin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh, sir," said Thomas. "We needn’t bother with any of that."</p><p>Beneath him, Edward whimpered, and lay still.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>68</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Terror Bingo</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>each thing in its place is best</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Finally, FINALLY turning something out for the Terror Bingo! This one's for my "Emotional Play" square. It also, what luck, happens to be <a href="https://terrorkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/396.html?thread=298380">a kinkmeme fill</a>! Thanks for the inspiration, nonnie!</p><p>Title from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's <em>The Builders</em>, which he probably didn't intend perverts to use to name their gently kinky pornography, but here we are. As ever, if there's something in here you wish I'd tagged for that I didn't, let me know.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Oh, sir," said Thomas. "We needn’t bother with any of that."</p><p>Beneath him, Edward whimpered, and lay still. "Sorry," he muttered.</p><p>"Beg pardon?" asked Thomas.</p><p>"I'm very sorry, Thomas," said Edward, more clearly, but not less apologetic.</p><p>"Just as well, sir." Bracing his hands on the edge of the bed, Thomas began to move again.</p><p>Edward looked up at the ceiling, hands fisting in the bedsheets, and tried to think about magnetic readings. Thomas Jopson, rising and falling on his cock, was a heady sight, and it would not do to thrust again without permission, or to spend too early. He knew all too well the consequences of such a failure; Thomas had a gift for self-denial that extended to a firm hand in denying Edward, too, and worse than that, he’d be <em>disappointed</em>.</p><p>“There, now,” said Thomas, with only a hint of breathlessness. “You <em>can</em> be good, can’t you. You only needed training up.” His thighs, strong, pale from the long dark of winter, flexed against Edward’s sides. “Imagine if I’d let you go on fumbling at me like a boy, sir- like a dog in rut.”</p><p>Edward could imagine. It was very easy to imagine having Tom on his back, on his knees, with Edward atop him. Tom's influence had worked so well in him that thoughts like these, almost more than the things Tom said to him, made him burn with shame at his own weakness. Thomas wasn't made to be pawed at by rough-handed sailor lads. He deserved a gentleman, a man who could take and carry out an order, and Edward would be that for him. He could be.</p><p>"They make devices for this,” Thomas mused. “Wood, or ivory. All sizes." He squeezed around Edward's cock, making Edward have to bite his lips to keep from shouting. "Wouldn’t that be something, sir? Perhaps I could have Mister Honey fashion one for me.”</p><p>Edward bit his lip harder, fighting back a whimper. He could imagine that too- the lovely neat lines of him stretched out in Edward's bunk, with a… device in one hand, the object taking Edward's place. Beautiful, he'd be so beautiful, only the picture wasn't quite right; in this, in whatever it was that had grown up between them, Thomas disliked having to please himself. He preferred, rather, to be pleased.</p><p>“Perhaps, if you were very good, I might let you use it on me,” said Tom, in a soft, conspiratorial whisper (how he could do that while so occupied was anyone’s guess) and he reached down a hand to rest on Edward’s bicep, feeling out the muscle, assessing. “You'd like that, I think. No chance of you coming off too early then."</p><p>"Still might," said Edward, and immediately regretted it. The look of consideration lighting up Tom’s eyes always presaged- not ill, exactly, but certainly trouble.</p><p>Why couldn’t he have struck up an ordinary understanding with one of the men? Granted, it wasn’t quite the thing for a first lieutenant, messing about with foremastmen or petty officers, but it would have been <em>simple</em>. No AB or gunner’s mate would treat him like Thomas Jopson treated him.</p><p>It wasn’t even about cruelty. It would be easier if it was- the Navy had no shortage of straightforward men who would be cruel to him in a straightforward way- but Tom rarely needs to be cruel. He just… pushes. Gently but irresistibly, he pushes, and Edward bends, and bends, and bends.</p><p>The hand on his arm moved up to his jaw, Tom turning his face so he couldn’t help but look up. “I don’t need to bother Mister Honey, do I, sir? Not when I’ve such a willing instrument at my disposal.” With his fingertips still holding Edward’s cheek, he reached down with his other hand to the slick space where their bodies joined, circling the base of Edward’s prick with his fingers. “You’ve a decent specimen here. Lucky I was to hand to show you the proper use of it.”</p><p>It was. There were so many men on board Thomas could have chosen, perhaps some of the men Edward was just thinking of, who would gladly lie down for him- some better, probably, than Edward, at least at this. “Lucky,” he echoed, caught in those pale, knowing eyes.</p><p>Tom looked down at him for a long moment, his close-trimmed nails rasping through Edward’s whiskers.  “Alright, then, Lieutenant,” he said, giving his cock a squeeze both inside and out that made Edward twitch from his scalp to his toes. “You know what to do.”</p><p>It took a moment to unclench his cramping fingers from the bedclothes and shuffle backwards, so that he was sitting propped against the wall with Tom in his lap. The skin of Tom’s flanks was smooth as hard-washed linen under his palms, and his thumbs fitted just so into the divots of his hips. Would he be as thrilling to lay hands on if Edward were given free reign to do so as he liked? Maybe, maybe. Holding on to Tom for leverage, Edward fucked up into the tight heat of him.</p><p>This was the most trying part. The sweetest part- God Almighty, the way Tom’s body responded to his, the barely audible sounds he made, how he arched and flexed into Edward’s thrusts, wonderful and maddening all at once- but the most difficult. He must not spend before Thomas. He could not.</p><p>“Harder, now. Tilt my hips back, like- there, that’s it.” The voice. Tom was so good at the voice. Edward had had to practice for ages to sound like he was giving orders, but the tone of command rolled so smoothly off Tom's tongue, sometimes Edward's body followed his instructions before his brain had time to catch up. “Yes, like that. Keep doing that,” he said, steadying himself with his hands on Edward’s chest.</p><p>The sweetest part, and the part that tore at him, because like this, for the moments he held Tom in his hands and gave his body over to what Tom demanded of it, it was easy to allow himself to pretend... things that weren’t real. To pretend that Tom came to him for reasons other than convenience; that Tom really had <em>chosen</em> him, and meant to keep him. To pretend that he wished Tom would be kind to him, when he knew and Tom knew that it was Tom’s carefully crafted disdain that kept Edward crawling back to be used by him again and again.</p><p>“You can do better than that," Tom murmured. "You can make me come with that pretty prick of yours, can't you?"</p><p>“I can,” panted Edward, “I can, I-”</p><p>“Go on then, sir,” said Tom. “Let's see if you can manage it this time, hmm?”</p><p>He did try, and try very hard, to do as he was bidden. Breathing steadily through his nose, he brought to bear all he had learned of how Thomas liked it to give him the buggering he deserved; the long, steady thrusting he preferred, the angle that made his leg shake when Edward got it just right. And it <em>was</em> good, he could tell, every movement of the lithe form in his arms told him it was good, but it wasn't good <em>enough</em>. The clutch of Tom's arse around Edward’s cock threatened to blot out everything else in the world, and though he could tell Tom was close, Edward was- he was-</p><p>He pressed his forehead against Tom's shoulder. "May I touch you, please," Edward asked, miserably, through clenched teeth.</p><p>"Oh, sir," said Tom, on a sigh. "P'raps you'd better."</p><p>Edward brought his hand around to touch Thomas's hot, straining cock where it was pressed between their bellies. Tom had a lovely specimen himself, slender and pink as a spring rose, twitching in Edward’s hand as he gathered up the fluid leaking from the tip to slick his way, and every hitch of Tom’s breath as Edward touched him was another failure, another fresh nettle-sting of humiliation. He could feel his own end coiling at the base of his spine, and he worked his hand faster, desperate to get Tom there before he ruined everything by coming too fast.</p><p>God, what was wrong with him? Why did the thought that he might make him want to?</p><p>Tom was making the tiny noises in the back of his throat that meant he was on the precipice. It would be soon, and Edward could hold on that long, couldn’t he. He could do that. Last time he came off before Tom said, it had been two agonising weeks before Tom would so much as look at him, let alone let him touch; he’d survived that. A minute more was nothing.</p><p>Edward bit down on his lip again when it began, so as to avoid crying out, and kept his hand moving in rhythm with his hips. At last, at last, Tom came, open-mouthed and silent, eyes squeezed shut as he rode out the shocks, and Edward had a long, blessed moment of reprieve from his own looming crisis, watching him and feeling him shudder as he painted both of their bellies with his spendings.</p><p>His relief was short-lived; once it was over, Tom breathing raggedly against Edward’s cheek, he could feel it again, the spasming insistence of it. “Please,” he gasped. “Please, Thomas, may I-”</p><p>Thomas hummed contemplatively. “I suppose you’ve earned it,” he said, and the condescension in his voice was so perfect, his hauteur so deliciously untouched, that it was enough to send Edward over the edge, thighs screaming with effort as he spent inside Tom with a whimper.</p><p>Before he could fully come back to himself, Tom disentangled their limbs and climbed off him, leaving Edward damp and shivering in his bunk, sweat cooling rapidly on his bare skin. He’d set out washcloths before they’d started- God had marked him out for his profession from the first- and he handed one to Edward, who wiped Tom clean, starting with his chest and ending with his fundament. Tom watched, too, while Edward tidied himself up, and then he set to dressing himself, linens to necktie, as quickly and efficiently as though summoned by the captain’s bell.</p><p>“I can do it,” said Edward, very quietly. “I can. I will, if you- next time?”</p><p>Tom looked down at him, those cool eyes appraising his naked body, as he gathered up his washcloths and his basin of water. “I’m sure you’ll do your best, sir,” he said, and he slid open the door of Edward’s cabin, leaving Edward to scramble for a blanket to cover himself as he made his way out, and closed it again behind him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please come and scream about icy lads with me <a href="https://jkrockin.tumblr.com/">on tumblr</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rockin">on Twitter</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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